If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

New tool for undervolt/overclock AMD K8L and K10 processors

09-17-2010, 08:53 AM

Hi guys, I made a new tool for undervolting/overclocking Family 11h (K8L) and Family 10h (K10) AMD processors, available both in Linux and Windows, for 32 bit and 64 bit flavours.

The program name is TurionPowerControl, since it has born as a tool to control power usage of Turion ZM/RM and Athlon QL processors, then it has evolved to support also Phenom, Phenom II, Athlon II desktop processors and mobile Athlon II, Turion II and Phenom II.

I put here because I need some feedback from users: K8L support is established and working well, but K10 support is still in a early state and needs testing and feedback since I have no continous access to K10 processors.

The package contains compiled win x86 and AMD64 binaries, compiled Fedora 13 AMD64 binary and full source code with compile script. Last but not least, there's a full documentation with some usage and compiling examples.

Hi guys, I made a new tool for undervolting/overclocking Family 11h (K8L) and Family 10h (K10) AMD processors, available both in Linux and Windows, for 32 bit and 64 bit flavours.

The program name is TurionPowerControl, since it has born as a tool to control power usage of Turion ZM/RM and Athlon QL processors, then it has evolved to support also Phenom, Phenom II, Athlon II desktop processors and mobile Athlon II, Turion II and Phenom II.

I put here because I need some feedback from users: K8L support is established and working well, but K10 support is still in a early state and needs testing and feedback since I have no continous access to K10 processors.

The package contains compiled win x86 and AMD64 binaries, compiled Fedora 13 AMD64 binary and full source code with compile script. Last but not least, there's a full documentation with some usage and compiling examples.

Hi blackshard, thanks for this tool. It seems great work, but unfortunately I am unable to get it working. I'm trying it on a Phenom II X4 940 BE (10h).

Comment

Actually cpuinfo (and don't know kde system monitor too) don't update in real time the information about the cpu.
Also many utilities (like cpufreq-info) state that they do hardware calls to report their data, but actually they don't!

Tpc instead reads all its info directly from the processor, it can't be wrong.
With Linux, the only way I know to see if cpu frequency has changed is to do a benchmark. Prime95 is my favourite benchmark: it has a builtin benchmark that takes seconds to say if your processor has changed frequency.

Also, are you running your processor on an AM2 motherboard? In that case probably you can change voltage at various pstates, but it won't have effect.

Comment

Actually cpuinfo (and don't know kde system monitor too) don't update in real time the information about the cpu.
Also many utilities (like cpufreq-info) state that they do hardware calls to report their data, but actually they don't!

Tpc instead reads all its info directly from the processor, it can't be wrong.
With Linux, the only way I know to see if cpu frequency has changed is to do a benchmark. Prime95 is my favourite benchmark: it has a builtin benchmark that takes seconds to say if your processor has changed frequency.

Also, are you running your processor on an AM2 motherboard? In that case probably you can change voltage at various pstates, but it won't have effect.

Exactly. I opened a bug report about this some time ago on the kernel and it was rejected. The cpu speed shown everywhere normally is wrong when you over- or underclock.

Comment

# tpc -l
Turion Power States Optimization and Control - by blackshard - v0.29 (pre-alpha)
cpuid:open: No such file or directory
Cpuid_Fn0 Instruction failed
Error: unable to get processor specifications

Comment

Thx. Now it's working but I've notice one thing - when I monitor core usage while mrpime is running at 4 cores, tpc shows that only 3 cores are at 99% (core 2 is at 0%) but top/htop shows all 4 at 99%.

Comment

Actually cpuinfo (and don't know kde system monitor too) don't update in real time the information about the cpu.
Also many utilities (like cpufreq-info) state that they do hardware calls to report their data, but actually they don't!

Tpc instead reads all its info directly from the processor, it can't be wrong.
With Linux, the only way I know to see if cpu frequency has changed is to do a benchmark. Prime95 is my favourite benchmark: it has a builtin benchmark that takes seconds to say if your processor has changed frequency.

Also, are you running your processor on an AM2 motherboard? In that case probably you can change voltage at various pstates, but it won't have effect.

Hi, thanks for your answer. I tried setting all pstates to 100 mhz and I felt the result , so a big thanks for this tool. Yes, I'm using an AM2 motherboard. Apart from changing VID, do you think the reportd one is correct? Because 1.15V for 3600 mhz seems a bit too low to me (and the bios says otherwise).

Comment

Hi, thanks for your answer. I tried setting all pstates to 100 mhz and I felt the result , so a big thanks for this tool. Yes, I'm using an AM2 motherboard. Apart from changing VID, do you think the reportd one is correct? Because 1.15V for 3600 mhz seems a bit too low to me (and the bios says otherwise).

Most probably it is reported correctly, but there is an issue with AM2+ CPUs on AM2 boards: since there is just one single power plane, the processor and the northbridge (i.e. the memory controller) share the power source. So the processor is feed with northbridge voltage, which is usually higher than processor voltage, so those VID numbers means just nothing in such situation. That's the reason why AMD raise the TDP of AM2+ CPUs when put in an AM2 boards.

You may try to change those VIDs but shouldn't happen anything at all. To be precise, I guess that because I never had the chance to experiment it by myself, but just read it on AMD documentation.

At the moment the program can't change the Northbridge VID on K10 processors because I have to test and experiment by myself since the matter is a bit delicate.